Missouri Mills

Six weeks ago Forrest Smith, State Auditor of Missouri, was buzzing about the Treasury Department in Washington. "Wouldn't the U. S. coin one and five-mill pieces," he begged, "to assist Missourians in paying the 1% sales tax imposed by their Legislature?" Secretary Henry Morgenthau Jr. assented. Franklin Roosevelt drew a picture of the coins as he would like them (TIME, Aug. 5). A bill went to the House Committee on Coinage, Weights & Measures, where Representative Lloyd Thurston of Osceola, Iowa made this proposal:

"I suggest that the President, the Secretary of the Treasury and each member of Congress should be required to carry a pound of shingle nails in his pocket for 30 days before acting on this bill."

There was no time for such an experiment. The mill bill was dropped as inexpedient and last week Missouri's new sales tax law went into effect. Promptly the State began to provide its citizens with means of paying fractional cent levies when all banks put on sale milk bottle caps inscribed with the State seal and labeled "Missouri Retailers Sales Tax Receipt." Those with blue circles were worth one mill in taxes, those with orange circles, five mills. In theory citizens paid their sales tax in advance upon purchasing these bottle tops from the banks. In practice, they took bottle tops in change from retail merchants for that part of a cent not kept for the sales tax. Missourians found their pockets bulging with caps enough to start dairies. One dairy company delivered milk sealed with one-mill tokens. Storekeepers with rubber stamps printed advertising on the tokens' backs. Republicans scribbled on them: "Pendergast Money," "Vote G.O.P. and End the Sales Tax."

Five other States have resorted to their own form of "money" to make sales tax payments of less than 1-c-, despite the Treasury's opinion that such action infringes the Federal Government's sole power under the Constitution to coin money. The States' retort is that what they are issuing is not "legal tender" and therefore worthless for anything but their sales tax. Illinois has issued round aluminum tokens about the size of a dime, is now issuing larger square tokens that are less apt to be misused in telephones, slot machines and other coin devices. In Washington the round metal pieces have a hole in them and are worth two mills each in taxes. Colorado, which has had a sales tax for the last six months, last week began to use for the first time square, aluminum tokens, with blunt corners, worth two mills.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.